Just as Wei Liang was beginning to find peace in his transformation, reality shuddered around them. The Architect's domain—previously unshakeable—began to vibrate with tension. In the distance, Ling Tian's carefully tended reality-trees started withering despite his ministrations.
"What's happening?" Wei Liang demanded, his protective instincts flaring as he watched his newly created universe flicker with instability.
The Architect's expression grew grim for the first time since Wei Liang had met him. "The Council has noticed my latest student. They're coming to evaluate whether you represent acceptable development or dangerous deviation."
"Council?" Wei Liang asked, though he dreaded the answer.
"The Council of Architectures," Ling Tian explained, abandoning his gardening tools as the withering spread. "Beings like our teacher, each responsible for different fundamental aspects of existence. They maintain the boundaries between what is permitted and what threatens the greater structure."
Wei Liang felt his blood-form tense with familiar aggression. "More opponents to overcome?"
"No," the Architect said sharply. "The Council cannot be overcome through violence. They represent structural necessities of existence itself. Fighting them would be like trying to defeat the concept of logic through force."
The space around them began folding as reality was compressed to accommodate vast presences. Seven figures materialized in the garden, each one radiating authority that made the consumed Creator Gods seem like insects. They appeared as abstract geometric forms wrapped in concepts too complex for normal perception.
The first spoke with a voice like grinding mathematics: "Design, you have permitted anomalous development in your domain. The entity designated Wei Liang represents dangerous precedent."
"In what manner dangerous, Structure?" the Architect replied formally, his casual demeanor replaced by diplomatic caution.
"He achieved tenth-stage advancement while retaining consumption-based mentality," another Council member intoned. This one appeared as shifting patterns of cause and effect. "The combination threatens hierarchy stability."
Wei Liang stepped forward, his newly developed creation instincts flaring. "I am not some problem to be discussed! I am—"
"Irrelevant," the third Council member cut him off. This entity manifested as pure authority, its presence compelling silence. "Individual perspectives are statistical noise in architectural considerations."
The dismissal ignited Wei Liang's rage, but before he could act, the Architect placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. The touch conveyed desperate warning—any aggressive action here would have consequences beyond imagination.
"The student shows promise," the Architect argued. "His creation work demonstrates genuine development beyond consumption paradigms."
"Temporary advancement," Structure replied coldly. "Core patterns remain unchanged. Statistical analysis indicates 97.3% probability of reversion to destructive behavior when faced with sufficient challenge."
"Then provide controlled challenges," the Architect suggested. "Allow me to continue guidance under Council observation."
The Council members conferred in languages that predated speech. Wei Liang watched their geometric forms shift and merge as they evaluated probabilities across countless timelines. Finally, Authority spoke their decision:
"Conditional continuation granted. Subject Wei Liang will undergo standardized transcendence trials. Success permits continued existence. Failure results in pattern dissolution."
"What does that mean?" Wei Liang asked quietly.
"Complete erasure," Ling Tian whispered. "Not just death—removal from the fundamental structure of existence. You will never have existed at all."
The stakes struck Wei Liang like physical blows. His entire journey, from mortal cultivation to blood-avatar transcendence, could be retroactively negated. Every person he had ever affected, every change he had made to reality, would be unwound as if he had never been born.
"I accept," he declared before the Architect could object. "What are these trials?"
The fourth Council member materialized fully—an entity that appeared as living paradox, simultaneously existing and not existing. "First Trial: Creation of sustainable complexity without consumption-based power sources. You must build a thriving multiverse using only self-originated energy."
"Second Trial," announced the fifth member, manifesting as pure potential, "Integration with existing structures without domination. You must cooperate with established powers without attempting to absorb or control them."
The sixth Council member, appearing as crystallized time, delivered the final challenge: "Third Trial: Sacrifice of ultimate advancement for collective benefit. You must choose between personal transcendence and service to greater purpose."
"Time limit: Seven universal cycles," Authority concluded. "Failure at any stage results in immediate pattern dissolution. Observation begins now."
The Council members faded back into conceptual space, leaving Wei Liang alone with his teacher and predecessor. The weight of impending judgment pressed down on the garden like a physical force.
"Well," Ling Tian said with forced lightness, "at least they gave you more time than they gave me. I only got three cycles."
"You faced these same trials?" Wei Liang asked.
"Similar ones. The Council adapts challenges to each individual's specific weaknesses. Your trials are designed to force confrontation with the consuming mentality that still drives you."
Wei Liang looked at his hands, still formed from living blood sustained by accumulated power from countless victims. The Council was right to doubt his transformation. Despite his recent progress, the old patterns remained deeply ingrained.
"How do I begin?" he asked the Architect.
"By understanding what you truly want to achieve," his teacher replied. "Not power for its own sake, but what you hope to accomplish with that power. The trials will force you to choose between easy strength and meaningful purpose."
Wei Liang nodded grimly. The greatest challenge of his existence was beginning, and failure meant erasure from reality itself. But for the first time in his cultivation journey, he faced a test that couldn't be overcome through consuming others.
He would have to transcend himself.
Wei Liang stood at the edge of primordial void, preparing for his first trial. The Council had provided him with a space of absolute nothingness—no existing matter, energy, or concepts to consume. His task was to create a thriving multiverse using only power generated from within himself.
His tenth-stage transformation had granted him the ability to self-originate energy, but the scale required was staggering. A single universe demanded careful balance of countless factors. A multiverse required each universe to interact harmoniously with all others while maintaining individual stability.
"Remember," the Architect advised, "consumption-based thinking will lead to failure. You cannot build sustainable complexity by taking shortcuts."
Wei Liang nodded and extended his consciousness into the void. Instead of seeking something to devour, he began the delicate process of generating fundamental principles from nothing. The work was exhausting—every particle of matter had to be imagined into existence, every physical law carefully calibrated to support rather than conflict with every other law.
His first universe began as a simple framework—basic space-time with elementary particles and four fundamental forces. But as he tried to scale up the complexity, problems emerged. The universe's expansion rate was unstable. Matter clumped too quickly in some regions while leaving vast empty spaces in others. Within hours, the reality had collapsed into either black holes or empty vacuum.
"Patience," Ling Tian counseled as Wei Liang began his second attempt. "I destroyed forty-seven realities before achieving basic stability. Creation requires accepting failure as part of the learning process."
This insight proved crucial. Instead of viewing each collapse as defeat, Wei Liang began treating them as experimental data. Universe twelve taught him about the relationship between dark energy and cosmic expansion. Universe nineteen revealed how quantum fluctuations could be harnessed to seed galaxy formation. Universe twenty-eight showed him the delicate balance required for stellar nucleosynthesis.
By his fiftieth attempt, Wei Liang had achieved a stable single universe containing billions of galaxies. Life emerged spontaneously on countless worlds, developing into civilizations of staggering diversity. But the trial required a multiverse—multiple universes interacting across dimensional boundaries.
The challenge of inter-universal connections nearly broke him. Each universe operated according to its own physical laws. Creating stable pathways between realities with different concepts of causality, different mathematical principles, even different definitions of existence itself, seemed impossible.
"How did you solve this problem?" Wei Liang asked Ling Tian during a brief rest period.
"By accepting that universes, like people, don't need to be identical to cooperate," the former Demon Emperor replied. "I stopped trying to make them compatible and started looking for ways they could complement each other."
The insight sparked a breakthrough. Instead of forcing uniform laws across all realities, Wei Liang began designing universes with complementary principles. A universe where entropy ran backward paired with one where chaos bred order. A reality based on pure mathematics connected to one founded on artistic inspiration. Each universe's unique nature strengthened the overall structure rather than threatening it.